


thick as thieves

by malevon



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 02:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevon/pseuds/malevon
Summary: oh you know just some more ballroom shenanigans





	thick as thieves

Kharis drew in a breath, his mind whirling. The air outside felt completely different from the air inside the ballroom, crowded with people, stuffed with too many sounds, too many feelings, too many eyes locked onto the two of them, suspicious and wondering. He needed to draw in a few breaths.

“Feeling alright?” Maryn asked simply, the posh lilt to her voice almost vanished, safe in the company of just each other. Kharis hummed, not missing the slight note of concern in her voice. 

“Nothing to be worried about,” he huffed a humorless laugh. “You know, this may just be the stupidest thing you’ve ever roped me into, Mar? Of all the things you’ve ever dragged me into? This is worse than the Lands. Worse than the Court.”

Maryn laughed, then, and it was not humorless. “Worse than the _Court?_ You almost _died_ , Kharis.”

“And while that may be true, I recovered from that ordeal and am walking as a free man. If we get caught doing this shit, we will never live to brag about it,” he countered, letting a bright grin shine on his face as he dropped his voice down to a near whisper.

Maryn mumbled a quiet agreement, turning to lean against the balcony railing and face out to the gardens. Kharis’ eyes hovered on her for a moment, perhaps too long, looking at everything about her and at nothing in particular all at once, before he turned to settle beside her in a comfortable silence.

Kharis then put his energy into looking at the sky, the stars and the full moon above them. He thought of Aywen, and he thought of home, and how far he was away from it. If his family ever found out that he _did_ , in fact, almost die, he would never see the light of day again.

He wondered somberly if he would ever see them again. 

“You know,” Maryn started again, the upper class society now dripping again from her voice, “you’ve been quite the worthy companion these last several months, Mr. Crowe.”

“Oh, why thank you, Ms. Fulton,” he tried to accent his voice, and smiled, bowing slightly. “That’s weird. I don’t like that.”

“It doesn’t sound like you.”

“It’s not me,” Kharis laughed and shook his head. “It isn’t you either, is it?”

Maryn scoffed at the notion. “No. We don’t belong here, do we?”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

Kharis bit the inside of his cheek, cracking the joints in his hands. He was considering something very, very stupid, something even more stupid than this damn heist. _Just once,_ he thought to himself. _Just once, and it doesn’t have to mean anything._

But it _would_ mean something, at least to him. He couldn’t decide if he preferred whether or not it meant something to Maryn, too.

“We could pretend,” he started, his cheeks growing warm and his fingers growing cold as he turned again to face her. “Pretend that we belong here. Act like we’re different than what we are.”

Maryn looked at him, a funny furrow in her brow, her eyes sparkling. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” 

Kharis smiled, a bit sadly. He made what could be considered an attempt to lean in closer. “Yeah, I suppose so.” The thought occurred to him that he still had the option to burn the bridge before he crossed it, but he was no ignae, and he had already placed one foot on the bridge. 

Why not _sprint_ across the rest of it, while he was at it?

“Can I kiss you?” Kharis asked and regretted it immediately, his voice not sounding like his own, the high-pitched and nervous voice of a young boy, not the one of a twenty-one year old man. It took all of his willpower to maintain eye contact as Maryn turned her head, her eyes wide and a shocked air about her.

The silence that took them over was _not_ a comfortable one, not until Maryn burst out in cackling laughter, throwing her head back and then onto his shoulder. Kharis pulled back, sure that embarrassment colored his face, and all he could do was hope that it wasn’t too apparent. “What?” he asked, somewhat desperately.

“You’re just so... _stupid_ ,” Maryn said through laughter, looking up at him after she recovered. “You’re right. We—we don’t belong here.” She brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear that had come loose in her fit and sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder again. “But I suppose we could pretend like we do.”

Kharis was, as stated, twenty-one years old, and he had never kissed anyone before. It was never something he thought about, never something he really considered or had time to consider. The last place he ever thought that it would happen, if it ever did, was on the balcony of the Vridelan castle, attending a royal gala, but Maryn Fulton always had a way of making the impossible happen. 

It only lasted for a second, but it felt like forever. A second that was more than Kharis could have ever expected, that tasted of seawater mixed with the perfume of the ballroom, that felt like everything she had ever roped him into, that, of course, only lasted a second. 

The second passed, and they pulled away from each other, holding an earnest gaze that, also, only lasted a second before Kharis genuinely smiled, and was mirrored by his companion. Maryn laughed again, glancing out towards the gardens. “Are you ready to go back in?”

“I think this is just about as ready as I’ll ever be to steal from the Hawthornes.” Kharis grinned, barely holding back the urge to brush her hair behind her ear, and then realized how cliche he was being. The Kharis from two years ago would be disgusted with current Kharis, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Took you long enough, Crowe,” Maryn quipped. She took his hand then, and he happily offered it, and, thick as thieves could be, they sauntered back into the ballroom, high society accents dripping from their voices.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time writing a kiss in like six years and it’s not even terribly descriptive lmao


End file.
